Welcome to a brief summary of Bitcoin, this is meant to be short and to the point to give you an idea of what you are investing in. I alway recommend you read the Whitepaper for a more detailed explanation of the cryptocurrency you are interested in.
What is bitcoin? Bitcoin, or BTC as the coin symbol, is the first ever cryptocurrency to be created. It was created in 2009, shortly after the worldwide financial crisis by a person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. To this day, no one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto really is.
Bitcoin was originally created to be used as a form of digital currency, much like the numbers you see when you log into your bank account. The difference between your money and bitcoin is that bitcion is decentralized, meaning no single entity controls the bitcoin network, versus your country's money, that is controlled by your government.
So what give Bitcoin its value? Well, in reality, nothing does, only what the people perceive it to be. The same perception that gives silver, gold, real estate, technology, diamonds, or you government's money value. So why is it worth so much? Well, it could be the fact this monetary system is not in the control of a single entity, and that people can trade it as they please in the hopes of avoiding using the global fiat currencies.
There will only ever be 21 million coins. Each coin can be divisible by 8 decimal places. A price of 0.00000001 is considered by many to be 1 satoshi unit. As of the time of writing, making transactions on the network is slow and expensive . Transaction times should increase soon with the implementation of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin's codebase.
Bitcoin is almost a decade old and has been used as a substitute for many purchases on ecommerce purchases, trades, and even real estate purchases.
Where will the value of Bitcoin in the future? No one knows, but what we do know is that it's being traded and used by millions of people worldwide in business and out of business, 24/7.